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"Shit Happens"- Economic Crisis & Bart Simpson Defence...

Shit happens, but why Brian?

Brian Cowen seems to have decided to take refuge in a variation on what is known in political speak as the Bart Simpson defence.

And no, relax, he's not suggesting we eat his shorts, more the other Bartism: "I didn't do it, nobody saw me do it, you can't prove anything.'' Cowen's version was: "There's no crisis, OK maybe there is a crisis but it's not my fault, why can't you people get it through your thick skulls that there is a crisis."

Back at the start of the summer, when even Fine Gael knew there was something wrong, Cowen was telling us that the fundamentals were sound. Having announced a saving of half a billion, which was going to solve all our problems, Cowen and his whole Government then disappeared for the whole summer as the world plunged into crisis.

Then they all reappeared after their long break to concede that, all things taken into account and having examined the figures, there might be a problem. The important thing though was that the problem was not Cowen's fault. It was a fairly typical civil service reaction. When confronted with an urgent situation in the private sector our immediate reaction is to look for a solution; in the civil service the priority is to cover your ass.

And then Cowen moved into phase three, which was to hector us, the people, for not getting the magnitude of the crisis. Even though most of us got it long before Cowen did. In his latest opus in Hot Press, Cowen suggested last week that everything was fine in Ireland until Lehman Brothers. So Brian Cowen thought things were fine with Irish banking and the financial system until September 15. So Bank of Ireland shares, for example, had lost about three quarters of their value before Lehmans happened, but Brian still thought everything was fine? Truly he has the finely honed instincts of a trained killer.

In general, Cowen has been practising a new form of government. We like to call it the "shit-happens" school of government. Basically, you go around acting like you are just a bewildered outsider watching events unfold, events that are completely outside your control. Events which you cannot, nor should you be expected to, do anything about. And you talk gravely about how bad it all is and what a shock it all is, and then you kind of shrug your shoulders as if to say, "Shit happens".

"There's financial turmoil out there," Cowen says, "from which we cannot go on thinking we're immune." So true. Except the rest of us never thought we were immune. Did Brian Cowen? Bizarre. He talks too of the need for "dialogue with the public so we understand what we're facing into and why we should confront it". Hilarious. We've been confronting it since before Cowen knew it was happening. We confronted it all summer while he was on holidays.

Nice to see you've caught up Bri.


Report - Sunday Independent Newspaper.

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